Parshas Shemini

Parshat Parah deals with process of purification and making one’s self
holy. This is also the theme of Parshat Shmini, the parsha that Parshat
Parah coincides with this year. The parsha of Shmini concludes with an
admonition that Jews must retain the ability to differentiate between the
scared and the profane, between the pure and the defiled, between what is
permissible to be eaten and what is forbidden. Rashi comments on this that
it is insufficient to have superficial book-knowledge of these things but
one must become an expert in this ability to differentiate and recognize
the differences inherent in what is proper and what is not. After Rabbi
Meir Shapiro, the famed founder of Yeshivat Chachmei Lublin in prewar
Poland visited the United States; he was asked his impression of American
Jewry. In his usual incisive and pithy style he answered: “They know how
to make kiddush. They do not know how to make havdala.” The inability to
differentiate between the holy and the profane, between right and wrong,
between eternal Torah values and passing, currently politically correct
fads has destroyed many Jews spiritually and physically in our time.
Everything is morally equivalent, everything can be altered to fit one’s
whims, faith is rendered simplistic and unnecessary and there is no moral
base line left. Look about the wreckage of modern society strewn all
around us and you will see the cost of being unable to make havdala.

The Torah warned us of the consequences of being unable or unwilling to
differentiate in our personal and national lives. The disciplines of
Shabat, kashrut, family purity, etc.- aside from their own intrinsic
values and worth – helped inculcate within the Jewish people an acute
sense of expertise in being able to differentiate between the eternal and
the temporary, between right and wrong. The abandonment of those
disciplines over the past few centuries by large sections of the Jewish
people has led to monumental social and personal disasters. In today’s
climate of moral equivalency there is no right or wrong, there is no
sacred space or time – there is only the drudgery of the pursuit of the
pleasures that always seem to elude us. And in order to justify this
irrational, self-destructive and many times completely immoral behavior,
there are those who see fit to “reinterpret” the Torah to “fit our
times.” “Reinterpreting the Torah” destroys any chance at becoming an
expert in differentiation.

It is obvious from reading and studying this week’s parsha that the Torah
intended not only that we eat kosher food but that we become kosher
people. Kosher speech, kosher behavior, kosher money, kosher dealings with
others are all in the purview of being able to differentiate between what
is to be eaten and is not to be eaten. Being careful in using products
with proper kosher certification – a field of one-upmanship that has
reached spectacular heights in our day and society – is commendable. But
it is not the goal itself, it is only meant to be a means towards becoming
a kosher person – one who is sensitive towards others and can
differentiate between the petty and the solid, between the eternal and the
transitory. Shmini cries out to us to sharpen our abilities to
differentiate and aim towards becoming a holy people.